


On Beautiful and Broken Things

by Aria_Faye



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, M/M, look elsewhere for fluff and knotting porn, not tagging anything else because spoilers, not your average abo fic, please read summary and author intro
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-01 12:32:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 19,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15774198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aria_Faye/pseuds/Aria_Faye
Summary: A series of interviews given by Yuri Plisetsky about his late Husband, Victor Nikiforov.





	1. Interview Log: Y.P.-01

**Author's Note:**

> I normally have a strict policy where I don’t post anything until I have it completely written, beginning to end. (Which is why I hardly ever post anything—I’m sorry!) But I’m breaking that rule for this one. So I apologize if updates are irregular or have long periods of silence between them. Just know that I’m committed to this story and fully plan to finish it. Hang in there. Subscribe to it if you’d like.
> 
> WARNINGS: There are lots of trigger-y things in this fic. Lots. This fic is about broken, messy people. It’s a life story, full of all the gritty bits, just like reality. I haven’t tagged anything because I don’t want to give away spoilers that could ruin the emotional impact of this fic. If you love these boys as much as I do and you eat sadness for breakfast, this is the fic for you! If not…maybe wait on this one. Buckle up, because shit is going to get real.
> 
> Special thanks to [Neuroglam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neuroglam/pseuds/neuroglam/), whose writing not only impresses the hell out of me, but also teaches me that it’s okay to make your darlings suffer in the name of a good, emotional fic. Go check them out if you haven’t already.
> 
> Thanks also to [LittleLostStar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleLostStar/pseuds/LittleLostStar) for the SCP AU that inspired me to write in this format. (This is nothing like an SCP AU, but hers is incredible, so check it out on [Tumblr](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/)!)

**Interview Log: Y.P.-01**

Interviewed: Yuri Plisetsky, α, 82, widower to subject

Interviewer: Inna Petrushev, β, 26, biographical correspondent

[All interviews have been translated from Russian to English for the benefit of Bluejay-Connell House Publishing. Some details may be expunged for client confidentiality. Per client’s request, full transcripts have been provided to the Johns Hopkins Center for Omega Health and Research.]

Foreword: Interview conducted on **[REDACTED]-** **[REDACTED]** -20 **[REDACTED]** as the first in a series of subject-based interviews with Mr. Yuri Plisetsky, roughly three years after subject’s death. Audio recorded in Mr. Plisetsky’s living room in St. Petersburg, Russia.

<Begin Log>

 

Inna Petrushev [hereafter IP]: Good morning, Mr. Plisetsky.

Yuri Plisetsky [hereafter YP]: You already said good morning before you set up your recorder. Don’t waste my time with getting pleasantries on tape. You’re here to ask me questions. So ask.

IP: …fair enough, sir—

YP: You keep calling me ‘sir,’ I’m not telling you anything.

IP: Alright. Sorry.

YP: Stop apologizing. Just ask your questions. I’ve got pirozhki in the oven.

IP: Ah—of course. Tell me about the day you met your late husband.

YP: That’s not a question, Ms. Petrushev.

IP: _Will you_ tell me about the day you met your late husband?

YP: Better. I think we’ll get along just fine. Now. About Victor. I was three the day I met him, and—shouldn’t you be writing this down?

IP: …the recorder…

YP: Still. Write it down. Give you something to do with your hands. That’s something Victor taught me. Makes the people you’re talking to feel less nervous.

IP: Right. I didn’t mean to make you nervous, Mr. Plisetsky. Let me just—[rustles through bag for notebook and pen]

YP: I never said I was nervous.

IP: Of course not. But am I right in saying that this is the first time you’ve discussed your late husband with anyone since his passing?

YP: He died, Ms. Petrushev. He’s not a kidney stone. He doesn’t get _passed_. He’s human, and humans die. Hell, I’m probably not too far myself. This might be my only opportunity to make sure the real version of his story is out there. Normally I wouldn’t be volunteering this information at all.

IP: I understand.

YP: Good. Now. I was three. He was fifteen. We met on the ice, because where else? He was beautiful, and I was wearing the smallest skates they had at the rental counter. You can find this story anywhere, you know. You don’t have to ask me. I remember at least a dozen interviews we gave after we were married. It was a popular question.

IP: Yes, but if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to get the story from your perspective.

YP: [sighs] You realize this happened almost eighty years ago, yes? And my memory’s not what it was.

IP: You remember this, though. I can tell.

YP: Bits and pieces. Impressions. Victor’s hair was long. He was tying it back by the boards. Pulled the elastic from his wrist with his teeth. He was always doing that. Leaving lip gloss smears behind on his wrist, too. His nails were painted purple. Glitter. I remember the fight to get across the ice. I was so small, and the skates felt so heavy, and I kept wobbling, but I made it. And then he smiled at me. Introduced himself, asked me if I was having fun, all that. It’s what you do with kids at the rink who look at you with f ~~uck~~ ing stars in their eyes. But I didn’t know that then. See, I grew up in  **[REDACTED]**. Poor, with a father who’d left and a mother who’d taken up permanent residence at the bottom of a vodka bottle. I was used to being ignored or knocked around. So when Victor was so nice to me—it was the most magical experience of my life, and remained that way for years.

IP: Did you know he was famous at the time?

YP: Hell no. He was just some pretty teenager at the rink. And, before you ask, he hadn’t presented yet either. I obviously have no memory of him presenting, since I was so young when it happened. But he told me later that he presented at sixteen. The year after we met.

IP: And everyone just assumed—

YP: Well what else were they supposed to think? He is still the most decorated figure skater in history. I came close to beating him, but my knee gave out in the end, just a couple medals shy. Nobody even looked into his secondary gender. Not once. It seemed obvious to them.

IP: So you knew Mr. Nikiforov throughout your whole childhood, yes?

YP: Yeah.

IP: What would you say he was to you? An older brother? A role model?

YP: Oh none of that bulls ~~hi~~ t. He was just a guy who skated at the same rink as me. A guy who was nice to me. I clung to that a little, because that’s what kids do. But I didn’t even know _who he was_ until I was six and I saw him skating on tv at my grandpa’s. Then I finally understood why people were always trying to get pictures and autographs. I didn’t talk to him much to begin with, but especially after that I had nothing to say to him. He sometimes helped me with my skating, though, so there was that. I started with Yakov when I was seven—same as Victor had—and we didn’t really see any more of each other than before. It wasn’t until I was eight and one of the older skaters retired that my training time got switched to be right after his. We shared the ice for hours every day, and that was when we first started really understanding each other.

IP: [paper rustles] I have it here that you lived with your grandpa full-time by then.

YP: Yeah. Mama forgot to feed me for a couple days. She was too drunk. Grandpa hadn’t known how bad it was, but he came to visit and found me crying, so he took me. No questions. Mama never tried to get me back.

IP: That must have been hard on you.

YP: Don’t you dare pity me. I will end this interview right now, do you hear me?

IP: Yes. I’m sorry.

YP: Don’t be sorry; be better next time.

IP: Of course.

YP: …that’s something Yakov used to tell us. ‘Don’t be sorry; be better next time. Sorry doesn’t win gold medals.’

IP: …

YP: Anyway, Victor used to babysit me sometimes. I was at his apartment for a weekend while my grandpa was out of town, and that was the first time I saw all the pill bottles. Didn’t know what they were, of course. I was eight. But I remember wondering why someone as young and healthy as Victor needed to take so much medicine. I also remember once, I woke up in the middle of the night, and I heard retching coming from the bathroom. I panicked, opened the door, and I saw Victor with the end of a toothbrush down his throat and nothing coming up.

IP: Oh my.

YP: I know he didn’t mean for me to see, and hell—I did the same thing for a while when I was older. Figure skaters do s ~~hi~~ t like that. We’re all hot messes, Ms. Petrushev. We sacrifice body and soul in the name of beauty. To accomplish impossible feats. Victor gave up more than any other skater, and nobody even knows.

IP: That’s why you’re talking to me.

YP: Yeah. He deserves to be remembered for his sacrifices. Nor just as a name to beat in the record books. He was my husband, and my mate. I didn’t understand as a child, but I watched him suffer the consequences of s ~~hi~~ t like this for decades. Up till the day he died. It was f ~~uck~~ ing agony.

IP: I can imagine.

YP: Can you?

IP: …No. Probably not.

YP: Right answer. [sighs] He cut his hair when I was ten. _That_ was a s ~~hi~~ t-show.

IP: Yes, one of the biggest mysteries of the skating world. Why Victor Nikiforov cut his hair. Rumors and guesses exploded into circulation after the first photograph of him with short hair. I still hear about it sometimes.

YP: Yeah, I’m not surprised. Even seventy years later, Victor is still raising hell from beyond the grave. [laughs] That ought to tell you right there the kind of man I married, Ms. Petrushev.

IP: Do you care to weigh in on the hair-cutting debacle?

YP: Sure. I’ll tell you exactly why he did it. Just as he told me after I put a ring on his finger. God. He treated it like some f ~~uck~~ ing Federation secret. The reality is that he just liked the s ~~hi~~ t it stirred, so he never told. But he’s not here to stop me, so. [beat] Victor was f ~~uck~~ ing depressed. Had been for years. I think it was a combination of all the pills and just his general lifestyle. Depression is extremely common in top-ranking athletes. You give up everything to a sport and the press and politics, and it sure as hell takes a toll. Especially back before mental health was really discussed. Nobody knew what to look for, you know? But Victor was depressed, and he had tendencies toward self-harm. Nothing that would leave permanent scars—he knew they wouldn’t be secret for long, what with being a famous skater and all—but I know for a fact that not all of the bruises on his body came from falling on the ice. Eventually, hurting himself wasn’t enough. He had to do something more. He went for the hair for two reasons: one, because it was the most well-known part of him—something that made him unique. His entire public self. Destroying that was like suicide, but without the actual death part. Two, Victor was also paranoid. He worried constantly that someone would see him with his long hair and his painted nails and his lip gloss and wonder a little too hard about his secondary gender. As a teenage phase, the long hair was fine. But, at twenty-two, he was pushing the boundaries of alpha acceptability. So, because of those two things, he cut his hair. Messy and panicked, in his apartment. He used kitchen shears.

IP: Did he tell you that, too? About the shears?

YP: No. I saw him the day he did it. I came to his apartment as soon as I overheard Yakov talking to his then-wife Lilia about it. The floor was covered in silver hair. The kitchen shears were still in his hand.

IP: What did you do?

YP: I told him he looked like s ~~hi~~ t.

IP: [laughs] Wow. Okay.

YP: Well he did! His eyes were all red from crying and not sleeping. He had stubble all over his jaw. Clearly hadn’t had a shower in days. Overall, he looked kind of…grey. And the cut was f ~~uck~~ ing awful. A complete hack job. And I was ten. I didn’t get it. So I said he looked like s ~~hi~~ t. He nearly smiled at that, so I can’t regret it. You know something, Ms. Petrushev? Victor always had the most beautiful smile.

IP: He did. I’ve seen plenty of pictures.

YP: [scoffs] Not those. I’m talking about Victor’s _real_ smile. The one that I spent my entire f ~~uck~~ ing life pursuing. His eyes would crinkle and sometimes he’d flush, and it was the most genuine thing I’ve ever seen. Like he just couldn’t help himself. It wasn’t magazine-perfect, and it was clearly underused. Not something he was used to wearing. But damned if it wasn’t flawless in its imperfection. F ~~uck~~. I’d give just about anything to see it one more time.

IP: You miss him?

YP: [quiet] Yeah. Yeah, I do.

IP: Tell me something else.

YP: About Victor?

IP: Yes. If you want to.

YP: Oh god. That’s Pandora’s box, Ms. Petrushev. I could talk about him all f ~~uck~~ ing night. But I can smell my pirozhki, so we need to wrap it up here soon. Let me think— _Dirty Dancing_. It was one of his favorite movies. [laughs] He used to drag me up from the couch to dance with him. It usually started during the dance scenes, but we didn’t always stop when the scene ended. Just…dancing in the middle of the living room. He’d f ~~uck~~ ing glow.

IP: Did you do the lift?

YP: Nah. We were both top-level athletes with broken bodies and a million aches. But I will tell you that the way we danced would have made you blush, Ms. Petrushev. Like you are right now, in fact.

IP: [under the breath] Oh god.

YP: [laughs] We were younger and prettier then, and I was crazy about him. [beat] Here’s some advice: You’re young, yes?

IP: Yeah.

YP: Fall in love. And don’t be an ass about it. There’s nothing shameful in loving someone. Tell them. Wear that s ~~hi~~ t on your sleeve. Would have saved me a hell of a lot of trouble.

IP: I understand.

YP: And listen to old geezers like me. God knows we’ve been through it.

IP: [laughs] Of course.

YP: Same time tomorrow?

IP: If you’re available.

YP: I’m retired and my husband’s dead. What the hell else would I do?

IP: See you tomorrow, then.

YP: Yeah, whatever.


	2. Interiew Log: Y.P.-02

**Interview Log: Y.P.-02**

Interviewed: Yuri Plisetsky, α, 82, widower to subject

Interviewer: Inna Petrushev, β, 26, biographical correspondent

Foreword: Interview conducted on [REDACTED]-[REDACTED]-20[REDACTED]. Audio recorded in Mr. Plisetsky’s living room in St. Petersburg, Russia.

<Begin Log>

 

IP: How old were you when you first started having romantic feelings for your late husband?

YP: Skipping the pleasantries today, I see. And opening right up with a question. I told you we’d get along. You learn fast. Now let me think—I don’t know if you could call it romantic, but I first started feeling a connection to Victor when I was twelve. He was twenty-four, so it was very abstract and vague, but definitely there. I was going into Juniors, and, while I was absolutely ready, I was intimidated as f ~~uck~~. Every kid is when they make that jump. Victor knew exactly how it felt. He’d been where I was standing, and he understood. That kind of thing runs deep.

IP: My records state that Georgi Popovich was also skating in the Senior division that year. He was only a couple years younger than Victor. Wouldn’t he have had the same kind of connection?

YP: Georgi was a great guy, and he always had my back. But the honest fact is that he was never on the same level as Victor and me. We were prodigies. He was a good skater, sure, but he didn’t really understand. Not the way Victor did.

IP: You took gold at the Junior Nationals that year.

YP: Yeah, but pretty much only because I stayed in Victor’s room the night before. I was scared s ~~hit~~ less, and he had two queen beds. I was supposed to have been with Yakov, but someone found Georgi with pot, so he went in with Yakov instead. Punishment’s a bitch and all that. So Victor had an empty bed, and I would have been on a cot in the corner of Yakov’s room otherwise, so, when I asked, Victor said I could stay with him.

IP: It calmed you? To be near him?

YP: Well, like I said, he _got_ it in a way that most didn’t. I was twelve and very small and nervous. It helped to be in the same room as him, yeah. He had this way of just… _radiating_ calm. Not much ever bothered him—up to the day he died, too. Literally. He rolled over in bed one night and calmly informed me that he probably wouldn’t see the morning. Sure enough, I woke up and he didn’t. And that’s the terribly anticlimactic story of how Victor Nikiforov died. Write that s ~~hit~~ down, because I’m not saying it again.

IP: [pen scratches on paper]

YP: He really was the best guy to have around in a crisis. Like when I got injured and had to go in for knee surgery. The doctors tried to take him away from me when I went in for anesthesia, but I told them in no uncertain terms that I would be hobbling right out of the hospital if they didn’t let him come back too. Needless to say, the bastards changed their minds, and I went under with Victor holding my hand. They probably made him get out after that, but the important part is that I was also holding his hand when I woke up. He smiled down at me, all serene and s ~~hit~~ , tenderly stroked my hair back from my forehead, and told me that they’d had to chop my leg off.

IP: [laughs] What a little brat.

YP: Oh you have no idea, Ms. Petrushev. But we could both be little f ~~uck~~ ers from time to time, so we deserved each other in that respect, I guess.

IP: So you spent the night in Victor’s room before your first Junior Nationals.

YP: Yeah. He woke me up the morning of the event by petting my hair and humming some song. Like he was my mother or something. I probably should have realized then, about his secondary gender, but I didn’t. He told me to go make him proud. Him. Not Yakov. Not Russia. And I remember thinking about that when I went out on the ice. Making Victor proud. I could do that.

IP: You took gold at the Nationals, but silver at the Worlds, is that correct?

YP: Yeah. One of the other kids had changed his jump composition, so he beat me by a point and a half.

IP: And this was when Victor made the infamous deal with you.

YP: About winning Junior Worlds with no quads in exchange for him choreographing my Senior debut, yeah. That’s all pretty common knowledge in the skating world now. Ancient history if you ask me. But at the time, it was the most important thing, so I worked harder than ever to do like he said. And, as soon as I do it, he f ~~uck~~ s off to Japan without a word.

IP: You must have been angry.

YP: Don’t bait me, Ms. Petrushev; it’s insulting. You can read about it anywhere. Yeah, I was angry. Victor had promised me something, and, when the time had come for him to pay up, where was he? F ~~uck~~ ing Japan. So I found him and tracked his ass down in a foreign country. I was fifteen. It was stupid and reckless, but I was pissed. Anyone would have been.

IP: And then the Hot Springs on Ice competition.

YP: That f ~~uck~~ ing—yeah. [sighs] Victor called me the next day and explained that the reason he’d chosen Katsuki over me had been because Katsuki had needed him more than I did. It made sense, but I was fifteen and pissed, and all I really wanted to hear from him was that he was sorry, he’d f ~~uck~~ ed up, and he’d be on the next flight to Russia. I hung up on him. Then I spent the next hour or so screaming and throwing things. Punching walls. I had this framed picture of me and Victor—a candid one that Lilia had snapped one day at the rink during her shutterbug phase. I was straddling a bench with my stuff kind of strewn around me, and Victor was leaning over the boards to talk to me. He had his weight on his forearms—his skates were probably not touching the ice. He liked to do that. We were laughing. It was a good picture. One of the few that I kept around. I hurled it against the wall until the frame broke, and then I took the picture out from the glass shards and tore it up.

IP: Wow.

YP: Fifteen years old, remember?

IP: With a sense for the dramatic.

YP: Eh, figure skater.

IP: Fair enough.

YP: You think I was bad, you should have met Georgi. God.

IP: I’ve heard stories.

YP: Yeah, but nothing compares to meeting him, trust me. He was…an experience. Mila could probably tell Georgi stories for hours. If you’re ever bored, go visit her. She’s over at [REDACTED] with her mate Sara. Tell her I sent you.

IP: I’ll keep it in mind.

YP: She could probably tell you some things about Victor, too. But anyway. Next question.

IP: How long after this did you present?

YP: I made it through the whole season, thank god. I presented three days after Worlds. No one ever bothered me about my secondary gender either. Like Victor, my winning streak spoke for itself. But unlike Victor, I was actually an Alpha.

IP: I have it here that Victor was engaged at that time?

YP: Yeah. To Katsuki.

IP: How did you feel about their relationship?

YP: [scoffs] I mean, Katsuki wasn’t a bad guy, but I never really liked him a lot. I never knew what Victor saw in him. Victor liked to feel needed, though, so that might have had a part in it. Katsuki had a lot of anxiety and self-doubt, no matter how much support he had around him. Victor opened him up in a way that nobody ever had before, and that created a need for Victor in Katsuki’s life that Victor was all too pleased to fill. I don’t think Victor ever truly took a step back to look at Katsuki as a person, though. Not until the end. He let himself get caught up in the engagement and feeling wanted and needed, and he got so used to walking on eggshells that he didn’t even notice it anymore.

IP: Did you support Victor in his relationship anyway?

YP: Oh hell no. I told him right from the beginning that the only place I could see them ending up was in a dumpster fire. He didn’t believe me.

IP: And Katsuki being an Alpha didn’t raise any alarms from the community?

YP: Nah. Alpha/Alpha relationships are rare, but not unheard-of—especially among celebrities and athletes. Take Sara and Mila for example. Nobody thought for a second that Victor being in a relationship with an Alpha meant that he wasn’t one himself. Not even me. And that worked out well for Victor and me, too, in the long-term.

IP: Back to Yuuri Katsuki for a moment, if you don’t mind—do you think, by then, that this _connection_ you felt with Victor might have made you bitter to the idea of anyone being with him? Not just Yuuri?

YP: You mean was I jealous.

IP: I suppose so.

YP: Don’t suppose. Do you mean that or don’t you?

IP: I…I do.

YP: Good. [beat] Yes, I think that probably had something to do with it. I was firmly in denial for years, but in hindsight, I think I had been crushing on Victor for as long as I’d known what a crush was. It wasn’t something I thought about consciously, but I definitely viewed Victor as _mine_ , in some capacity, and I hated the idea of someone else having his attention. I would have been upset no matter who he was with—with the exception of Chris, who would also be a good person to interview about Victor, though his memory’s kind of spotty. Chris had known Victor forever, so he kind of got a free pass. But something about Katsuki rubbed me the wrong way. Everyone else was busy cooing over him and Victor like they were a g ~~od~~ damn faerie tale or something, and I made myself very unpopular for a time by being so openly pessimistic toward their relationship.

IP: It was personal for you.

YP: Hell, everything between Victor and me was personal. From the minute we met. By the time I presented, we were wound up so tightly in each other that I didn’t think there was a way out. Like when two necklaces get tangled in your pocket. We both tried to ignore it and pretend it didn’t exist, but nothing we did loosened the knot. It all just made it tighter.

IP: Until there was nothing left for the two of you but each other.

YP: Yeah.

IP: Was it harder after you presented?

YP: I wouldn’t know. He lived in Hasetsu at the time. We barely even spoke.

IP: …

YP: He…went to Japan for Katsuki, and he never came back. We saw each other at competitions, of course, and we were perfectly civil. But it felt so wrong. Everything we’d been through together—all the years and milestones and ugly bits—and we’d settled at a place where we smiled fake smiles at each other and limited our conversation to a couple awkward exchanges whenever our competitive paths happened to cross. We’d never been like that before. It f ~~uck~~ ing hurt.

IP: Like heartbreak?

YP: I guess. Maybe. If you asked Victor, I’m sure he’d say yes. He was always the more romantic of the two of us.

IP: …

YP: It’s stupid, but I remember this time I was scrolling through Instagram, and I saw one of Victor’s posts. It was a picture of Makkachin, his poodle. She was getting old then, and it was around Christmas, so she was wearing a Santa hat. He’d said something predictably cute about it in the caption and the tags, and I really wanted to comment on it. Say something witty, like one of our inside jokes, maybe send a picture of my cat or a line about Victor’s birthday. But I didn’t. I remember hesitating for almost a full minute before scrolling past. I suddenly wasn’t sure he’d appreciate my dry sense of humor anymore. Like we weren’t at that level any longer.

IP: I’m sure that was painful.

YP: Well yeah. There was a time when I would have told him anything. When he was the first person I thought to talk to. I’d text him the most random s ~~hi~~ t, like what I was having for lunch or a picture of a cute dog I saw. Literally anything. He was the first person I called when I was presenting. I was scared and hormonal, and, in my rutting stupor, I’d called Victor. Yeah, it f ~~uck~~ ing hurt that I was suddenly afraid to comment on his Instagram post. That we’d drifted apart _that far_ since Hot Springs on Ice. And I f ~~uck~~ ing hated him for letting it happen.

IP: So how is it that you ended up married, then?

YP: [quietly laughs] That is a story for another day, Ms. Petrushev. Is there anything else you want to know before we finish?

IP: Um…[paper rustles] What was Victor’s favorite food?

YP: Bad question. Try again.

IP: You mean he didn’t have one?

YP: I mean people like us generally have a terrible relationship with food. We eat because we have to or we’ll f ~~uck~~ ing die. A lot of us develop patterns and habits so that we hate food a little less. Sometimes those things are healthier and sometimes they’re not. Victor had six or seven ‘samefoods’ that he would eat over and over because he could forgive himself for eating them. It kept him from sticking a finger down his throat. I was the same way for a long time. I’d recommend not asking skaters about food in the future. Try another question.

IP: Okay—uh…favorite color?

YP: Pink. Always pink.

IP: …really?

YP: Oh yes. He was gay as f ~~uck~~. Of course he loved pink.

IP: And your favorite color?

YP: …pink.

IP: …

YP: What? I am also gay as f ~~uck~~.

IP: There is a startling lack of pink in your apartment.

YP: Well we also have taste, Ms. Petrushev.

IP: [laughs] You sure do. Tomorrow, then?

YP: No, I promised I’d visit Beka for his grandtwins’ birthday. I’ll be gone for the next four or five days.

IP: How’s next week?

YP: …Should be good. I’ll have my people call your people.

IP: [laughs] Sure, Mr. Plisetsky. See you then.


	3. Interview Log: C.G.-01

**Interview Log: C.G.-01**

Interviewed: Christophe Giacometti, α, 92, former friend of subject

Interviewer: Inna Petrushev, β, 26, biographical correspondent

Foreword: Interview conducted on [REDACTED]-[REDACTED]-20[REDACTED]. Audio recorded in Mr. Giacometti’s room at Coucher de Soleil Senior Facility in Lausanne, Switzerland. Interview conducted in English except where noted.

<Begin Log>

 

IP: Thank you for agreeing to this interview, Mr. Giacometti.

Christophe Giacometti [hereafter CG]: No trouble at all, _ma’moiselle_. Any friend of little Yura’s is a friend of mine.

IP: Mr. Plisetsky and I have been working together to construct a biography of the late Victor Nikiforov. He said that you would be a valuable source of information.

CG: Of course, of course. Because, before Vitya was Yura’s responsibility, he was mine.

IP: [paper rustles] You’re a little unusual, aren’t you? As an alpha who never took a mate.

CG: I suppose so, but I see no crime in following one’s heart.

IP: And your heart was destined to remain alone?

CG: Oh, I was never alone.

IP: Lovers?

CG: Friends. Far more important, though I did have my fair share of lovers as well—Vitya among them. Many, like him, were both friend and lover.

IP: I’ve heard that you were something of a Casanova in the skating world.

CG: I was casual with my affections, and I never saw a reason to deny myself pleasure. Even surly little Yura will tell you that such a thing is hardly a crime. He and I have shared a bed ourselves on several occasions.

IP: …He never mentioned that.

CG: He wouldn’t. For him, there was only ever Vitya. The brightest star in Yura’s sky. I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t even remember about our little trysts.

IP: If I may ask…what sort of trysts are we talking about?

CG: Oh Vitya was usually present as well, if that’s what you’re wondering. We were all very worldly from our travels—many international athletes are—and that led naturally into a sexually adventurous spirit. We did all kinds of things together, the three of us. Vitya and I spent much of our young adulthoods crossing things off our To- _Do_ list. He was the most fun I’ve ever had in the bedroom, without a doubt. And Yura, once he got on board…he surprised both of us, I think. But don’t let me distract you with ramblings on the past. I’m sure you have questions of a higher priority.

IP: No, please, feel free to talk. This is what I want—the unfiltered, real story.

CG: I don’t remember as much now as I did several years ago, I’m afraid.

IP: That’s okay. Whatever you can tell me.

CG: Let me see—[exhales] I feel it should be said straight off that Victor was always one of the strongest people I knew. I loved him dearly. Aside from Yura, I’m the only other person who knows the true narrative of his life. He had to hide so much of it, you see.

IP: Because of his secondary gender?

CG: Yes. It was imperative that nobody found out. He kept it a secret until the day he died. I’ve never told anyone, and Yura certainly wouldn’t have said a word. Except to you, which is curious.

IP: He said he wanted his husband’s story to be told.

CG: And it deserves to be told, I agree.

IP: Mr. Giacometti, if you’ll pardon my asking—I don’t think I understand why it’s such a big deal. Why was Mr. Nikiforov’s secondary gender kept secret so thoroughly? Maybe it’s because I’m just a Beta, but it doesn’t seem like it would be that important.

CG: Mmm, fair enough. First, though, you must understand that professional athletics have a long history of being rather sexist at times. They say it’s for the good of the sport and to level the playing field, so to speak, but it often ends up placing limits on entire groups of people based upon traits that they are unable to control or change. Most sports—skating included—are divided into two categories: ‘men’ and ‘women.’ Beta competitors are divided accordingly, and then Alphas of either sex compete with the Beta men while Omegas of either sex compete with the Beta women. It is assumed that both Omegas and Beta women are weaker than Beta men and Alphas, which is often untrue and problematic, you see?

IP: But what would have happened if anyone had found out?

CG: If anyone had ever found out that Victor was an Omega, his medals, records, and titles would all have been stripped, and he would have been asked to change divisions. If he had resisted, he would have been brought up on gender fraud charges, and he would have lost everything.

IP: That…seems really unfair.

CG: And yet it is what would have happened. Do you remember the skater Otabek Altin?

IP: He came up occasionally in my research, yes.

CG: He’s Yura’s best friend. Omega. He presented late, halfway through the skating season when he was nineteen. Did you happen to read what happened to him?

IP: I don’t recall.

CG: Since he had been presumed Beta before he presented, they allowed him to keep his prior medals. And because it was halfway through the season, they allowed him to continue, with the caveat that he would not be competing for points or medals. No matter how well he skated, he couldn’t win because he was in the wrong division. He beat me at the Grand Prix Final that year. Would have won gold for Kazakhstan. But because he was an Omega, he got nothing. Not even a victory lap or an exhibition skate. I won the gold, even though he was a full three points ahead of me.

IP: Oh wow. That’s so…wrong.

CG: I agree. That’s why I mailed him my gold medal after the season ended. It was rightfully his, and the fact that he beat not only me, but every other skater at the GPF that season just proves that the division system is archaic and unnecessary. Vitya too. He still holds world records and marks major milestones in skating history. He has tricks that he invented and were later named after him. He would lose all of that if anyone had ever found out. They could still strip it all from him posthumously, and I know that would kill Yura. But if he’s willing to take that risk, then I certainly won’t stand in his way.

IP: What happened to Otabek Altin?

CG: He retired prematurely at twenty. Could have easily gotten another seven or eight years out of the sport, but they would have made him switch divisions next season, so he quit. He had thought that if he won, maybe they’d let him stay. But they made their position clear, and he retired in response. I suppose he made his position clear too. He mated after a while. Had a few kids. I haven’t seen him in a very long time, but he was happy at least. It was just such a shame to see that potential die so young.

IP: If he couldn’t skate where he deserved to skate, he wasn’t going to skate at all.

CG: Exactly. By then, it was a matter of pride. Isolating Omegas and Beta women is an insult to them, especially with people like Otabek Altin and Vitya Nikiforov paving the way to show exactly how wrong those assumptions can be.

IP: I understand now.

CG: …[sighs] Vitya destroyed his body to keep this secret. Did Yura tell you that already?

IP: No, he didn’t. Can you elaborate?

CG: I won’t say too much, since it isn’t my story to tell. But, after Vitya presented at sixteen, he had to go immediately on constant, heavy suppressants. Suppressants, usually, are taken for a short period of time so that the heat cycle is uninterrupted and the body has a chance to recover. Vitya didn’t have that luxury. Even during the off-season, he stayed on his meds. Religiously. He didn’t have a heat for almost fifteen years. It messed him up.

IP: How so?

CG: …There was nothing in the world that Vitya wanted more than a family of his own, _ma’moiselle_. He was an only child with no parents. He grew up largely alone. For as long as I can remember, he wanted children. Even before he presented. A whole herd of them, with heart-shaped smiles and silvery hair.

IP: And…his suppressants…they took that away from him?

CG: He had no idea that the meds would make him unable to conceive. Nobody told him.

IP: …And when he found out…?

CG:  It broke his heart. [sighs] Can we talk about something more pleasant, please? I’m sorry.

IP: Oh, of course. Thank you for sharing.

CG: …

IP: [clears throat] Ah—you mentioned earlier that you and Mr. Plisetsky have a history.

CG: Dear, I have a _history_ with almost every internationally-ranked skater in my generation.

IP: This is my personal curiosity speaking, but—was Mr. Plisetsky always as… _prickly_ as he is now?

CG: [laughs softly] Oh, but he was much worse when he was younger.

IP: …I can’t imagine it.

CG: He was a mean little thing, our Yura. Of course, so was Vitya. Both of them, just awful. In very different ways, of course.

IP: And yet you managed to get close to both of them.

CG: It helped immensely that I treated them both differently than most people did. They were both astonishingly pretty. Vitya, tall and slim with that long, silver hair. He wore lip gloss and painted his nails. Nearly half his clothes were made for girls, including the occasional dress. He looked like some fey creature—a beautiful, androgynous god. Of course he was picked on because of it. He was surrounded by Alphas and Beta boys all the time, and he was prettier than most girls. He learned to be cruel in order to protect himself. His meanness was a very cold thing. His smile always had teeth and it always cut. And when he was angry, he was terrifying. Yura, on the other hand—rage like fire. Hot and rash and angry. He was always small for his age. Delicate. And he resented it.

IP: How on earth did you manage to slip past all that?

CG: Simple enough really: I wasn’t trying. I genuinely liked them both. Admired them. Vitya first, and then Yura. Slowly, they softened to me, and we wound up trusting each other very deeply.

IP: I’m not sure I understand how that translates to sex.

CG: Is sex not all about trust? Especially with an Omega in the room? Because of his years on solid suppressants, when Vitya finally started having heats again, they were brutal things. Yura sometimes had to call in reinforcements. Is that not a trust exercise? Letting me—an unmated Alpha—in bed with his heatsick mate? Watching him warm to me instantly, because he knew me and trusted me and had loved me once. The fact that Yura never tore my throat out still amazes me sometimes.

IP: I gather that you and Mr. Nikiforov had a sexual history prior to these heat events?

CG: I was his first sexual experience, _ma’moiselle_ , and he was mine. We were lovers for most of our lives, before and after his marriage.

IP: And Mr. Plisetsky allowed that?

CG: Yura _invited_ it. He’d fly me in sometimes for their anniversary, or for Vitya’s birthday. Sometimes we’d have sex, and other times not. We three ended up being very close. I suspect that Vitya was also close—and possibly even intimate—with Otabek. He and Yura liked to share their dearest friends amongst themselves. It pleased them. And it pleased me. Being wanted mutually by two gorgeous men? [laughs] I could live with that.

IP: Did it ever bother you that they were married?

CG: Sweetheart, if anything, the rings on their fingers made it all the hotter.

IP: …

CG: Let me ask you something. Do you have a lover, Ms. Petrushev?

IP: I…I have a boyfriend, yes.

CG: Imagine the two of you sitting down together. Talking about a mutual friend. Maybe one of you has a sexual history with them, maybe not. But you both find them attractive, and so you discuss the possibility of involving them in recreational sex. I’m sure you understand that sex need not always be exclusively purposed? Sometimes sex for its own sake is quite a diversion, yes?

IP: …yes.

CG: Ah, yes, you know. Look at you blushing. But imagine, if you will, that your mutual friend also harbored feelings toward you and your boyfriend. Not necessarily love, but…affection. Imagine how honored they would be when you approached them and broached this subject. That the two of you, who have such bright eyes for each other, have thought to open the door to that sweet little world of yours and invite them inside. It is a rare gift, to be allowed inside the private sphere of a devoted couple. It wasn’t as if one of them was committing infidelity with me. It was mutual and consensual—nothing secret or dirty about it. Do you see now?

IP: I…yes, I understand.

CG: What always amazed me in the times we were together was the way in which Vitya and Yura shared this quiet, unspoken adoration for one another. The first time I ever saw it in person, I was shocked. They had come so far. Yura, especially. He’d grown up so much.

IP: How do you mean?

CG: There was a time when Yura absolutely _hated_ Vitya.

IP: Oh really?

CG: I remember many occasions on which I heard them just _screaming_ at each other. I had no idea what about—they always spoke in Russian when they were feeling particularly strongly. A greater vocabulary and all that. But they burned like the end of the world for a while. I was one of the few people who looked at that and called it what it was.

IP: And what was that?

CG: Sexual tension.

IP: Did you ever bring it up to them?

CG: I mentioned it to Vitya once, but he was engaged and supposedly happy, so he didn’t want to hear it. Though I called that what it was, too.

IP: …

CG: It was horses ~~hit~~. Forgive my crudeness.

IP: I’ve been interviewing Mr. Plisetsky. Your vocabulary is tame by comparison.

CG: Ah yes. Of course. [beat] But yes, Vitya was not happy in his previous engagement. He thought he was, but I saw right through that. Meanwhile, he’s shouting the roof down with Yura every other competition—probably more, back at their home rink—and I just wanted them to f ~~uck~~ already, dammit. If it never went anywhere, fine. Just get rid of that tension.

IP: Did they?

CG: [scoffs] Not once. Not until years later. Yura was nineteen, Vitya thirty-one. I know this because Vitya panicked after and came running to me for help. But they were married a year later, so it clearly did good things for their relationship. Of course they still fought. Their fights were vicious, too. But, overall, they were very good together. They adored each other.

IP: Thank you for telling me so much, Mr. Giacometti. Before we wrap up, can you tell me one last thing? Just something amusing about Mr. Nikiforov, maybe? A memory?

CG: … I once caught him singing Britney Spears in the shower.

IP: …oh god. [laughs]

CG: Yes, oh god indeed. His singing voice at fifteen was atrocious. And when he came out of the shower and saw me, he _shrieked_. My ears rang for days.

IP: [laughs]

CG: [laughs]

IP: [exhales] Thank you again, Mr. Giacometti. This conversation has been…enlightening.

CG: You are very welcome, _ma’moiselle_. It was a pleasure to meet you. Please don’t be a stranger.


	4. Inna Petrushev

Back in her hotel room, Inna makes herself a cup of chamomile and settles cross-legged on the bed in front of her laptop. It’s late in Lausanne, and she’s still shaking off the edges of jetlag. She called her boyfriend that afternoon, after speaking with Christophe. The way he’d talked about love had made her want to hear his voice. She had burned throughout the whole conversation with the need to say something, but she hadn’t been able to find the words before they said their amicable goodbyes and closed the connection. He was off to work, and she was whiling away the earliest of hours aimlessly. She showered, ordered room service. Her publishing house was footing the bill, so she’d gotten dessert. Now, she opens her laptop and connects to the hotel wifi.

She opens her browser and skims the twenty—thirty, perhaps—tabs that she’s currently got open. Every one of them pertains to Victor Nikiforov. Finally, she finds it. An interview she’d only uncovered recently and has yet to watch.

For a long minute, she pauses. Stares at the thumbnail. Victor, sitting at a booth in some bland, white room. He really was quite pretty, she thinks, with his silver hair and those blue, _blue_ eyes. He’s wearing his red and white team Russia kit with that perfect smile—the one that she’d never realized didn’t touch his eyes until Yuri had pointed it out in their first interview. It’s dated 2014. Victor was twenty-five years old.

Not for the first time, it hits her hard that this man—the one she’s spending all this time trying to understand and get to know intimately—is dead. 2014 was an eternity ago. The world is a very different place now. Victor had lived to see it change.

Twenty-five.

That’s younger than she is.

Sometimes, she can’t imagine it—being a famous, international athlete at an age younger than hers. Already having records and titles. Your name in the history books before you turn thirty.

Other times, she thinks of her work and her current project, and she _hopes_.

She wonders if that’s how people become famous. They just hope hard enough and, eventually, action follows.

God, Victor looks so young.

The video is in English, with Russian subtitles. She is grateful; the interview with Christophe really drained her translation skills. The reporters are asking about the program Victor had apparently just skated. Things like theme and emotion. _“Mr. Nikiforov, can you tell us what you were feeling when you skated the second half of your program?”_ Victor’s smile never slips so much as an inch as he answers them.

One of the reporters stands up. _“You’re a three-time consecutive world champion and the most decorated skater alive. What’s your secret?”_

Victor considers that one for a moment. His smile falls. Finally, he says, _“There is no secret. You just have to love it enough to drag yourself out of bed before dawn every day. Put in a few hours on the ice before most people even get to work. Even when every part of you aches. You have to love it enough to sacrifice your body to it, and your soul. Your social life. Your education. That’s the hard part.”_ He shrugs, carefully devoid of emotion. _“Every skater here has made the same sacrifices. I’m just lucky enough to be the one who gets rewarded for them.”_

Inna pauses the video. Thinks about the things she’s learned about the man onscreen so far. It punches the air from her lungs. She thinks about what Christophe said about Victor’s medicine, about all the secrets—concealing them for an entire lifetime. She hears the words echo, hindsight between Victor’s spoken sentences, and she abruptly wants to cry.

For the first time, Inna thinks she really understands Victor Nikiforov.


	5. Interview Log: Y.P.-03

**Interview Log: Y.P.-03**

Interviewed: Yuri Plisetsky, α, 82, widower to subject

Interviewer: Inna Petrushev, β, 26, biographical correspondent

Foreword: Interview conducted on [REDACTED]-[REDACTED]-20[REDACTED]. Audio recorded in Mr. Plisetsky’s living room in St. Petersburg, Russia.

<Begin Log>

 

IP: Welcome back. How was your trip?

YP: I’m getting too old for this. F ~~uck~~ ing jetlag had me down for days.

IP: How far did you go?

YP: Toronto. That’s where Beka’s settled.

IP: Isn’t he Kazakh?

YP: Yeah, but he trained in Canada for a while. And his mates are Canadian. He tried to get me to move to Canada too, so we could be closer, but Victor and I had only just gotten married, and we both had our careers here in Russia. I always figured we’d end up on the same continent again someday, but it looks like the time for all that has passed. Thank god for technology, right?

IP: [laughs] You’re probably the only person from your generation who thinks that way anymore.

YP: Well, when all your friends live in different countries, you get used to artificial communication. That and time zones. You get really good at time zones.

IP: I don’t mean to backtrack, but—did you say ‘mates?’

YP: Yeah. Beka’s got two. A married couple—JJ Leroy and Isabella Yang. They kind of adopted him.

IP: Are they Alphas, then?

YP: Isabella is. JJ’s a Beta. Very much in love, but they couldn’t have kids. They were looking into adoption when Beka—because he’s an amazing friend—offered to carry as their surrogate. Once the first baby was born, it was pretty obvious that none of them wanted Beka to leave. They were a nice little family. So he stayed. Nothing formal on paper or anything, but he gave birth to each of their five kids and has stuck around to raise them. He’s an amazing mother.

IP: _Five kids?_

YP: Oh, he wanted more. JJ begged him not to.

IP: And I’m assuming we’re talking about the skaters Jean-Jaques Leroy and Otabek Altin?

YP: Yeah. Sorry. I’ve known them forever. I always forget to introduce them.

IP: While you were gone, I did a little traveling of my own. I flew to Lausanne to talk to Christophe Giacometti, like you suggested.

YP: Oh yeah? How is he?

IP: He seemed well enough. Not much was taboo for him, though.

YP: [laughs] Yeah, sounds like Chris.

IP: He told me a bit about Otabek’s skating history.

YP: You mean his abysmally short, unrecognized career? [scoffs] F ~~uck~~ ing deserved better.

IP: I agree.

YP: You can’t even find videos of him skating anymore! They took them all down when he quit! They were afraid that people might glorify his career and rise up or some shit. Call them out on being sexist pigs. They made it like he’d never skated, and he tried to hide it, but it got to him.

IP: Do you think he ever regretted leaving?

YP: Hell no. But I think he regretted that they didn’t give him a choice. He never really let it go, you know? I was there last week, and I saw his old skates at the bottom of the guest room closet. The leather is stiff and cracked and covered in dust, but he still has them. Hidden away like a shameful f ~~uck~~ ing secret. [sighs] They should be displayed in some f ~~uck~~ ing museum or something, not rotting away in a closet.

IP: It’s never easy to watch our friends suffer.

YP: No, it sure as hell isn’t.

IP: Is he happy, do you think?

YP: [sighs] Yeah, I think so. He always wanted a big family, and he ended up with two mates, five kids, and thirteen grandkids—and counting. But I think he would have been happier if he’d been allowed to skate. Like most of us, skating was his first love, you know? It f ~~uck~~ ing breaks my heart, what happened to him. If they had tried to take the ice away from me when I was twenty…I honestly can’t say what I would have done. If they had tried to do that to _Victor_ —well. We would have buried him a hell of a lot sooner, that much is for sure.

IP: Mr. Giacometti and I also talked a bit about Mr. Nikiforov’s tenuous position and the secrecy surrounding his secondary gender.

YP: It’s good that you talked to Chris about that. The only other people who know are me, Beka, and Katsuki. Of the four of us, Chris is the one most likely to give you a good explanation without falling the f ~~uck~~ apart.

IP: Would you recommend I interview Mr. Katsuki?

YP: Honestly? No. Yeah, he was Victor’s fiancé for a while, but there’s a reason they didn’t work out. He thought he understood Victor, but he didn’t. Not really.

IP: May I ask what split them up?

YP: It was…a lot of things. Victor was Katsuki’s childhood hero, and I don’t think he ever truly took Victor down from that pedestal. They didn’t have the patience they needed with one another. There were massive gaps in communication, and they spent the entire time avoiding pissing each other off like walking through broken glass. But I think what really did it was the kids thing.

IP: You mean how Mr. Nikiforov couldn’t have them.

YP: … The thing is, he told Katsuki that he was an Omega. The first person he’d told since Chris had found out right after he’d presented. Over ten years of complete secrecy, and he tells Katsuki, because it’s important information to have if they’re going to be married, right?

IP: Right.

YP: And, in the interest of honesty, he also told Katsuki that he couldn’t have kids.

IP: …Right.

YP: And…[sighs] Rather than just accept it as fact and set aside his own desires, Katsuki immediately started trying to… _fix_ Victor. Because Katsuki wanted kids, and he knew Victor did too. Victor told me once about how every other conversation had been, ‘oh, they’re developing this new fertility treatment’ or ‘if you stop taking suppressants, your body should reset. I read about it in this one book.’

IP: I don’t necessarily see how that’s a bad thing.

YP: … I mean. It…isn’t, exactly. Katsuki’s heart was in the right place. He saw a roadblock, and he wanted to remove it. But…this is a fantastic example of how Katsuki not understanding Victor really hurt them. Victor didn’t want the roadblock removed. He wanted Katsuki to tell him that it was okay, and that he loved him anyway. That he was committed to building a life with Victor no matter what. Victor didn’t talk about it much, but I could tell that it hurt him. He already saw himself as broken and kind of worthless. Katsuki trying to fix it only reinforced the idea that there was a problem in the first place. You understand?

IP: I think so.

YP: Anyway, I think the straw that finally broke them was when Katsuki got fixated on surrogacy. That one cut Victor deep. Before, it had been, ‘let’s fix you.’ Now, it was, ‘you’re just broken, so let’s get someone else who can do it better.’ Victor told me how he explained over and over that he didn’t want someone else to carry a child for them, how Katsuki had subtly implied that Victor was selfish for not being open to any and all possibilities. I’m not sure what exactly happened—maybe it was a big, loud fight; maybe he just slipped away in the night—but Victor left.

IP: And found you.

YP: Eventually, yeah. He went and stayed with Chris for a while. He made himself deliberately easy to find. I think he hoped Katsuki would come for him and apologize. Then, when Katsuki never showed and Victor’s coaching career called him back to Russia, I found him on my doorstep one night. Everything he owned was packed into a duffel bag and a suitcase. A tan line where his ring had been.

IP: What did you say?

YP: Nothing. I didn’t ask any questions. Just opened the door and pulled out the futon.

IP: How old were you?

YP: About a week away from eighteen.

IP: So young.

YP: Ehh, I did everything pretty young. Especially where Victor was concerned.

IP: When did he tell you about being an Omega?

YP: [laughs] He didn’t so much tell me as…kind of went into heat in the middle of my living room. I figured it out pretty quickly after that.

IP:  Oh my god.

YP: Well—I assume Chris told you about the suppressants?

IP: Yes.

YP: Well, because Victor hadn’t had a heat in about fifteen years, his body had no idea what to do with the sudden spike in hormones. His heats were irregular and vicious. They never stuck to any kind of schedule, especially not in the beginning, and they varied dramatically in how long they would last. Some of his heats were over in a day. Others took more than two weeks to pass.

IP: Wow.

YP: Yeah. And they didn’t present like heats at first, either. They looked like fever, until sex was initiated, at which point they started looking more normal. But damn; he’d fight. He felt sick, so of course he fought. I remember plenty of times where I had to actually hold him down to get my c ~~ock~~ in him. Once we were there, though, he calmed right away.

IP: …

YP: His heats were bizarre.

IP: I’m—uh. I’m gathering.

YP: You look uncomfortable. Don’t tell me sex makes you uncomfortable.

IP: No, it’s just—I just—[clears throat] It’s not something I’m used to discussing so…casually.

YP: [scoffs] Betas. JJ’s the same way. Blushes like f ~~uck~~ ing virgin whenever anyone talks about c ~~ock~~ s or knotting or heats. Say ‘c ~~ock~~.’

IP: I—what?

YP: Say it. Say ‘c ~~ock~~.’

IP: I—is this really—?

YP: Just say it. I won’t go blabbing to your boss about you being unprofessional or some bulls ~~hi~~ t. Say ‘c ~~ock~~.’

IP: …C ~~ock~~.

YP: See? Not so bad. I think you’ll live. You’d better get used to it, because sex is part of regular conversation where Alphas and Omegas are concerned. We talk about heats and s ~~hit~~ like you might talk about a knee injury.

IP: …Really?

YP: Of course! We have to structure our g ~~od~~ damn _lives_ around sex. I’ve had to cancel plans on multiple occasions because Victor’s heat came early. I just couldn’t tell anyone. Hell, in the absence of an Omega, Alphas go through rutting cycles. Mila’s been out of commission because of rutting before. It’s just a fact of life for us. Pretty unromantic, honestly.

IP: [coughs] So—uh. This first heat?

YP: I thought Victor was dying. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, he had a fever that should have killed him. He was shaking and sweating. God, he was so pale I could almost see right through his skin. I tried to take him to the hospital, but he wouldn’t let me.

IP: Because then the secret would have been out?

YP: Exactly. But I didn’t know what he needed, and I lived alone. Nobody to ask. And Victor was in no shape to tell me how to help him.

IP: What did you do?

YP: The only thing I _could_ do: let him ride it out.

IP: He didn’t send you into rut?

YP: Nah, his pheromones were really weak. Still coming off the suppressants. His body was trying to rebuild itself, and it hadn’t quite gotten to that part yet. And besides, I was on meds myself. Tone down my Alpha instincts—keep me from getting too aggressive. Most of us were, since we regularly spent time with lots of other Alphas. The meds weren’t anything crazy, but they took the edge off.

IP: When did you realize it was heat and not just fever?

YP: Toward the end, when he was lucid enough to know what he needed. I came home one day and found him riding his fingers, face buried in one of my hoodies. Classic Omega heat behavior.

IP: What did you do once you knew?

YP: I stayed with Mila for a couple more days. Until Victor noticed I was gone and texted to tell me I could come home again. Then, we sat down like adults and talked. He owed me some explanations.

IP: And I assume he gave them?

YP: Yeah. We worked out an arrangement where I would try to stay out of the apartment as much as possible when he was in heat. I never told anyone why I was hanging at Mila’s so much. Never even told Mila. When she asked, I just said that Victor was being annoying.

IP: And she bought it?

YP: Oh yeah. Hell, she bought it after Victor and I had been married forty years. We annoyed the hell out of each other sometimes.

IP: I’m still a bit fuzzy on how the two of you ended up married.

YP: We’ll get there. Right now, we’re at the part where he showed up at my door and went into heat after dropping off the face of the earth for almost three years.

IP: Did you at least…I don’t know— _care_ about him at this point?

YP: I—yes. I always cared about him. Even when I hated him. At this point, I was mostly confused, though. There was a lot that neither of us was saying. Everything I told you about how he broke it off with Katsuki? We had already been married for years when he told me that stuff. Hell, I didn’t tell him I loved him until much later either. We had a long history of not saying things, at this point, and it took a little while for us to get over that.

IP: I have to ask—wouldn’t it have been more convenient if Mr. Nikiforov got his own apartment rather than staying at yours? Especially after this whole heat fiasco?

YP: …Probably, yeah.

IP: You sound like this is the first time anyone’s brought it up.

YP: It just…never occurred to me. To either of us. I mean, we’d lived separately our whole lives, of course, but…once he was back, I don’t think either of us wanted to be alone. The thought of me asking Victor to move out—it never crossed my mind. Not once.

IP: You loved him that much?

YP: [laughs] I put up with his purple shampoo and nail polish collection—and his hopeless addiction to bath bombs. I loved him more than you’ll ever know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you are enjoying this story, please consider checking out the [Push/Pull Victurio Zine](https://tictail.com/pushpullzine/pushpull-phyiscal-copy), on sale now. There is so much amazing talent in this zine. So much love. I had such a great time writing for it. Also, keep your eye open for [Prism](https://prismyoi.tumblr.com/), another amazing Victurio zine full of talent and color! We're currently in the working period for that one, but I've got three pieces going in there. Both are complete labors of love from everyone involved. Lots of quality content.
> 
> Also, because I've had a couple people ask: I am, in fact, on [Tumblr](https://aria-faye.tumblr.com/).


	6. Interview Log: Y.P.-04

**Interview Log: Y.P.-04**

Interviewed: Yuri Plisetsky, α, 82, widower to subject

Interviewer: Inna Petrushev, β, 26, biographical correspondent

Foreword: Interview conducted on [REDACTED]-[REDACTED]-20[REDACTED]. Audio recorded in Mr. Plisetsky’s kitchen in St. Petersburg, Russia.

<Begin Log>

 

YP: I made you some tea. Here. [mug slides across counter]

IP: …Oh—thank you.

YP: Want any jam? I’ve got blackberry, cherry, raspberry…?

IP: Mm, blackberry?

YP: Yeah, sure. [glass clinks]

IP: What about you?

YP: Nah, too sweet for me. I like milk sometimes, but not today.

IP: Then why all the jam jars?

YP: …Victor liked jam.

IP: Ah.

YP: He was always putting jam in his tea. A s ~~hit~~ ton of it, too. Cherry was his favorite.

IP: Ah. I see.

YP: …

IP: … So…what’s the occasion?

YP: What are you talking about?

IP: I just…you’ve never made us tea before.

YP: Yeah, well, I don’t have to do it next time.

IP: No, tea is nice.

YP: Alright then.

IP: …

YP: No questions?

IP: I’m more interested to see where you take this, honestly. You look like you’ve got something on your mind.

YP: …

IP: …

YP: …Cherries, I guess. The first time I kissed Victor, he tasted like them.

IP: Oh?

YP: Yeah. He liked those maraschino ones, in the jar—you know? He could tie the stems in knots with his tongue. I think it used to be a thing with him and Chris. And the first time I kissed him…he’d just pulled a stem out of his mouth. A nice, neat little knot. God, he was beaming. He put it on the counter between us, and said, ‘Your turn; show me what that tongue can do.’

IP: Oh wow.

YP: I don’t think he meant anything by it. But he’d been living with me for a year at that point, and I had been in love with him forever, so I came around the counter and straddled his lap. There was a second just then when I saw how much he wanted me. You know what I’m talking about? Eyes all wide, lips soft, all kind of speechless? It was a good look on him. Surprising Victor Nikiforov never got old.

IP: …

YP: What?

IP: You’re just…leaving the story there?

YP: Well, I kind of thought you’d be able to fill in the rest yourself. We kissed; he tasted like cherries. His tongue was—

IP: Yes?

YP: …It was the first time we’d ever kissed. Christ, it felt like it lasted forever and no time at all.

IP: Did it ever get old?

YP: Kissing Victor? No. Never. [beat] He was…expressive. In quiet little ways like that. A kiss from Victor felt like reading a page from his diary or peeking into his soul for a second. He could tell you everything. Or nothing. And he never did it with his words.

IP: I’ve been watching interviews. He seemed pretty good with words, too.

YP: Oh, he was. But he wasn’t always honest. He had a way of making anything _sound_ genuine, whether it truly was or not. Sometimes, he’d say something with his words, and the rest of him would say the exact opposite. He was just that way. Most people believed his words. Not me. I started picking up on his bulls ~~hit~~ when I was a kid. After that, I learned to always pay attention to his whole body, because he’d tell me things with the tilt of his head or a flinch in his eyes. He had this habit of saying he was fine. He’d say it, but the angle of his body, for example, would tell me he sure as hell was _not_ fine.

IP: It sounds like learning a whole new language.

YP: It was, in a way.

IP: Were you the only one who could read him like that?

YP: No, Chris could too. And Beka got pretty good after a while. But Beka’s pretty good about reading people anyway.

IP: What about Mr. Katsuki?

YP: [sighs] Katsuki was one of those who took Victor on his word. He’d sometimes notice that Victor was bulls ~~hit~~ ting him, but he never had the audacity to call him on it.

IP: I see.

YP: Again, not a bad guy. Just…not what Victor needed.

IP: He needed someone to break that pattern.

YP: Exactly. See? You’re starting to understand.

IP: … Were you scared?

YP: Hmm?

IP: When you kissed him for the first time. Were you scared?

YP: … Yes. Very.

IP: Afraid he wouldn’t reciprocate?

YP: I mean…yes, on a very faraway, peripheral level. The much more immediate fear—the thing that had kept me from attempting this on plenty of previous occasions—was that I’d lose him like this. That I’d show too much of my hand, and he’d realize how I felt, and he’d vanish from my life. Again. We were finally friends, and over the last year of him living with me, I’d realized just how much I valued him on a deeply personal level—not that he could ever know it, of course. I never had many friends; the idea of losing Victor was f ~~uck~~ ing terrifying.

IP: What made you do it, then? Why was this time different from all the other times you considered it?

YP: It wasn’t. Not really. Nothing about the situation was different, except for Victor maybe being accidentally more forward than usual.

IP: You acted on impulse.

YP: …I think I was…sick of being afraid.

IP: I can understand that.

YP: Can you?

IP: Actually, yes. I can.

YP: …Victor would have liked you.

IP: …I’m sorry I never got to meet him.

YP: Me too. [sighs] Me f ~~uck~~ ing too.

IP: …

YP: …This would be so much easier for me, you know? If he was here. I’m don’t… I’m not really… _good_ at people.

IP: You do alright with me.

YP: [scoffs] Yeah, and I’m _how_ old? After _how_ many years of practice as an international athlete and celebrity? [exhales] He’s the one who taught me how to interview. How to answer questions without making a mess and how to bulls ~~hit~~ when I need to. He—taught me so much. About just being a human. I mean, he was f ~~uck~~ ed up, don’t get me wrong. But we were the same kind of f ~~uck~~ ed up, you know? Or close enough, anyway. It was always so much easier to talk to people when he was beside me with a hand at my back.

IP: …

YP: [laughs softly] F ~~uck~~ , I don’t know why I’m so g ~~od~~ damn chatty today. Sorry. It’s just—I think it’s because I had a dream about him. Last night. I mean—I always dream about him. But last night, it felt so f ~~uck~~ ing _real_. Nothing special. Just us in bed, the way he liked best. He’d—[exhales] he’d uhm. He liked to snuggle as close as he could. After a while, our heartbeats would synch up. God. [sniffs] I’m sorry. I’m over here losing my s ~~hit~~ like a f ~~uck~~ ing teenager. It’s been three g ~~od~~ damn years. I should be better than this by now.

IP: [quietly] May I speak plainly?

YP: Sure. Why the hell not.

IP: You’ve lost your husband, Mr. Plisetsky. You’re allowed to be sad.

YP: I didn’t lose him. He d—

IP: Died, yes. But you _did_ lose him.

YP: …[sighs] I hope you’re the one who dies first. Or—or at least that you don’t stick around for too long after your lover dies.

IP: …

YP: You know I’ve thought about it. Following him.

IP: Suicide?

YP: Mhmm.

IP: Why haven’t you?

YP: [exhales] Never been a quitter.

IP: …

YP: …

IP: …Do you want to be done for today?

YP: [deep breath] No, it’s okay. Sorry. I didn’t mean to—you know. Mess everything up.

IP: I don’t mind. Whatever you want to talk about.

YP: Okay. Yeah. [beat] … Everything was awkward as hell after I kissed him.

IP: Yeah?

YP: Oh yeah. In hindsight, it’s kind of embarrassing, how awkward we let it be. But neither of us had ever been good at talking about our feelings. Mila used to tell us we were ‘emotionally constipated.’ So, for a couple days, it was like the kiss had never happened. Except everything was chilly and uncertain between us where before, it had been easy.

IP: What got you out of it?

YP: Victor’s heat happened out of nowhere one day. I was packing up my stuff to leave when he caught my arm and asked me to stay.

IP: And you did.

YP: I did.

IP: And then what?

YP: We had mind-blowing sex for six days straight.

IP: …I meant…like. After the heat.

YP: I know what you meant. It’s just fun to make you blush.

IP: Oh my god.

YP: Be glad it’s me and not Victor. He would have started a point system by now with prize tiers and a betting pool. Nothing would have been safe.

IP: I take back what I said earlier. I’m very glad he never met me.

YP: I don’t take it back. He would have loved you. He only teased people he liked.

IP: How badly did you get teased, then?

YP: Oh my god, worse than anybody. Trying to have a straight conversation with him when he was in one of his moods—it was like pulling f ~~uck~~ ing teeth. Everyone always went on about how _complex_ Victor was, but in reality, he only had three moods: depressed, little s ~~hit~~ , and content.

IP: What was ‘content’ like?

YP: It was my favorite most days. He was just…extremely affectionate when he got like that. I’d lay out on the couch with a book or something, and he’d poke his head around the corner. Give me this questioning look, like a kid eyeing up a box of candy that they desperately wanted. I’d smile back, probably roll my eyes. Next thing I knew, I had my arms full of him. He’d cuddle up on my chest and purr until I made him move.

IP: He purred?

YP: Yeah, he purred.

IP: Hardly any Omegas purr anymore.

YP: I know. It was the cutest f ~~uck~~ ing thing in the world. [beat] Second cutest. The cutest thing was when I’d comment on his purring, and he’d get pissed at me.

IP: [laughs] Really?

YP: Oh, don’t you know he was a five-time consecutive world champion with more medals and records than anyone in living memory? Very serious. Never cute. [laughs]

IP: [laughs] He said that?

YP: I think he just disliked being called cute on principle. He’d get all huffy. Be like, ‘I’m not _cute_ , Yura.’ Meanwhile he’d be looking adorable with his little pouty face. I’d usually pull him out of it by nuzzling up to him and kissing his cheeks or something. Silly stuff, to make him smile.

IP: That sounds…really sweet, actually.

YP: Ehh, we had our moments. Mostly in private, but we could be very sweet to each other. In between all the teasing and stuff. Like how Victor would wake me up almost every day with kisses. In my hair, on my face, my neck…the tip of my nose…lots and lots of sleepy kisses over the years. Before his brain was even aware he was awake, he’d be kissing me. Even if we’d fought the night before.

IP: That’s adorable.

YP: That was Victor, though. He was always doing stuff like that. Little, tiny things. He’d make me smoothies to take to practice and leave them on the nightstand for when I finally dragged my ass out of bed to meet him at the rink. He’d braid my hair and paint my toenails whenever I asked. Sometimes we’d sit on the couch and rub each other’s feet and calves while watching a movie. He was always so careful not to hurt me. He’d stay up late and polish my skates before competitions sometimes. He was just…he was one of a kind.

IP: Did you ever fight?

YP: Oh yeah. Getting married didn’t mean we stopped annoying the s ~~hit~~ out of each other.

IP: Mr. Giacometti mentioned shouting matches.

YP: Yeah. Throwing things, sometimes, too. Breaking stuff.

IP: And that didn’t bother you?

YP: Honestly? It was one of my favorite parts.

IP: …making up afterward?

YP: Ehh, don’t get me wrong, our makeup sex was amazing. But I liked the fights. Well—not the fights themselves, because those always sucked. I liked _that_ we fought. That Victor was the type to call me on my s ~~hit~~ and get mad about it when I pissed him off. He was passionate. An artist in everything he did, and he had the temperament to match. I was no picnic myself, either. But, before Victor, I never wanted an Omega mate. I had always thought that they were all these quiet, demure little things who only ever tried to please their Alphas. And yes, that’s f ~~uck~~ ing backward, but it’s also the image that’s drilled into young Alphas from their presenting. There’s nothing wrong with submissive Omegas, if it’s what they like. But I never wanted that for myself.

IP: You wanted someone who would push back.

YP: I sure did.

IP: And Victor was that person.

YP: [laughs quietly] Hell, was he. God. [sighs] I never wanted domestic bliss. I think he did, at first, but I also think his version of ‘domestic bliss’ included fights so vicious that he ended up with a black eye once.

IP: [gasps] You hit him?

YP: I threw a gold medal at him. A whole lot of gold medals. One just happened to catch him in the face.

IP: Oh my god.

YP: To be fair, he threw a skate at me. If _that_ had connected, I could have died. Or at least been rushed to the hospital. We kept our blades sharp, Ms. Petrushev.

IP: Oh my god.

YP: He hated himself for it after. Shut himself in our room and wouldn’t talk to me. [quietly] He…he did that when he felt guilty.

IP: …Something you want to talk about?

YP: …Not yet. But—actually…

IP: Bad memories?

YP: Um. Yeah, something like that. I guess. Sorry. I don’t know why I’m—

IP: …

YP: …Can we be done for today? I’m sorry. I just—remembered…

IP: Of course, Mr. Plisetsky. I’ll be in touch.

YP: Hey Inna?

IP: Hmm?

YP: …Thanks.


	7. Interview Log: Y.P.-05

**Interview Log: Y.P.-05**

Interviewed: Yuri Plisetsky, α, 82, widower to subject

Interviewer: Inna Petrushev, β, 26, biographical correspondent

Foreword: Interview conducted on [REDACTED]-[REDACTED]-20[REDACTED]. Audio recorded in Mr. Plisetsky’s kitchen in St. Petersburg, Russia.

<Begin Log>

 

YP: Hey, before you start asking questions, I wanted to say sorry about last time. I was…not myself.

IP: There’s nothing to apologize for.

YP: Yeah, but I—

IP: Mr. Plisetsky, do you know what I saw last time we talked?

YP: …

IP: I saw a widowed man who missed his husband. That’s to be expected.

YP: But it’s been three years.

IP: So? It’s _only_ been three years. You two were married…what? _Sixty_ years?

YP: …Fifty-nine. The dumb bastard had to die a month before our sixtieth anniversary.

IP: Alright, fifty-nine then. Some people don’t even live fifty-nine years. That’s a lifetime all on its own. Not even taking into consideration that you met him when you were _three years old_. You are more than allowed to grieve.

YP: …I just thought grieving wouldn’t take quite this long, you know? It’s annoying.

IP: Just like Victor?

YP: [laughs] Yeah. Just like him, really. Annoying as hell, and clingy.

IP: …

YP: You can ask your questions now. While the tea steeps.

IP: Okay. [clears throat] So you were nineteen when you first kissed Victor?

YP: And subsequently slept with him, yeah.

IP: And the shared heat was the first time for that?

YP: Yeah.

IP: Had he ever shared a heat before?

YP: Once, I believe. With Chris. When he was young, back before they got him on suppressants. Literally his second heat ever.

IP: And after that?

YP: Suppressants. No heat for fifteen years. Then retirement. Off the suppressants because he was in a stable relationship with an Alpha—Katsuki. Broke it off with Katsuki a couple years later. Found me when he was thirty and I was almost eighteen. He dealt with his heats alone until the time he asked me to stay.

IP: I’ve heard that’s tough.

YP: Solo heats? Yeah. He said it was, anyway. But what else was he supposed to do? I mean, the three people on earth who knew he was an Omega at the time were either living in a different time zone or still underage in some parts of the world. His options were fairly thin on the ground.

IP: Not having a choice seems to be a pretty consistent thread in Mr. Nikiforov’s life.

YP: It definitely was. Sometimes, late at night, we’d get drunk and lay in bed, staring at the ceiling and having really maudlin, philosophical discussions. The kind we usually avoided while sober. One time, he pointed out just how bitter it was that something so simple and involuntary as a secondary gender could f ~~uck~~ a person over so thoroughly. I remember listening to him talk about how, if he hadn’t gotten into skating, he might have been sold into marriage or some s ~~hit~~ because he wouldn’t have been able to get out of the orphanage without Yakov to help him, and Omegas don’t get the same opportunities as Alphas and Betas. But then he’d talked about how, if he hadn’t gotten into skating, at least he wouldn’t have needed to keep such an enormous, high-stakes secret all the time. Hell, maybe by then he would have been mated with a small army of pups. That’s all he ever wanted—children. Pups. We eventually agreed that it would have been easier overall if he had just presented Alpha and been done with it. We drank that night to s ~~hit~~ ty luck and disobedient bodies. He never had a choice, Ms. Petrushev. Not for the first thirty years of his life, anyway. I sometimes think that his first real choice was to go coach Katsuki.

IP: From what I’ve read, it seems like the world almost resented him for choosing to do that.

YP: Well, he was the world’s darling. Stepping off the stage for a year at the height of his career was disappointing to a lot of people. It’s no secret that event viewership dropped dramatically whenever Victor wasn’t on the ice. But honestly, he had it all. Skill, passion, charm—and he wasn’t bad to look at either. People who had never cared about skating before started watching when word of his groundbreaking programs started getting around. Nobody has ever come close to his level of fame in the sport since. Not even me.

IP: Sometimes, people come along who are special enough to change the world.

YP: Victor was definitely one of those people. You know I’m taking a huge risk by doing this book with you?

IP: Mr. Giacometti said that Mr. Nikiforov could still lose everything, even posthumously.

YP: Yeah. But the reason I decided to go ahead anyway was because, even if they take everything from Victor—even if they try to erase his name from existence…they won’t succeed. He’s a fixture, and he’s the only skater to ever hold a place in history like that.

IP: That’s incredible. I wish I could have been around to see it.

YP: Oh, it was amazing. Watching history being written right in front of my eyes. I was well into my adulthood before I ever let Victor know just how much his skating meant to me—how amazing I thought it was. He’d been retired for over a decade by then. He cried. That was the last time I ever assumed that he knew how special he was.

IP: His skating really was beautiful. I’ve been watching his programs—

YP: Yeah, but you don’t understand. Skating now…the way it is…it’s _because_ of people like Victor. Looking back on his programs with skating like it is now… What you have to understand is that nobody had ever done that before. The quad flip—nobody had ever landed it in competition before Victor. And that’s just the beginning. He didn’t just think outside the box; he f ~~uck~~ ing destroyed the box. A couple of his programs nearly got him disqualified from events because nobody had ever seen anything like him before. It wasn’t in line with the rules. It wasn’t against the rules either, though, because it wasn’t even in the f ~~uck~~ ing rulebook. Victor _reinvented_ skating. Nobody would be where they are today if he hadn’t come before them—and that’s just a fact. There’s no way you can possibly understand what it was like to see that happening. Especially as a kid. F ~~uck~~ , I remember being six years old and sitting in front of my grandpa’s grainy-ass television, adjusting the rabbit ears so I could watch Victor skate. I could only think, ‘this is the kid who helped me learn my mohawk turns last week. This is the kid who wears giant-ass sweaters instead of his skating jacket. This is the kid who snaps his gum when he talks.’ It was…f ~~uck~~ ing unreal.

IP: …[softly] Wow.

YP: And I got to f ~~uck~~ ing _marry_ him. I don’t think you understand how amazing that is. I got to wake up every morning next to the guy who turned the world on its head before he even hit thirty. Sometimes, I would just look at him while he slept and feel giddy as s ~~hit~~ because Victor Nikiforov, the _Living_ f ~~uck~~ ing _Legend_ was in my bed, wearing my ring, drooling on my pillow. Like—what the f ~~uck~~! This is the kind of s ~~hit~~ teenagers dream about! And then he’d wake up and look at me all sleepy with messy hair and pillow creases on his cheek, and I swear to god, Ms. Petrushev. I never loved him more than in those moments.

IP: …

YP: [laughs softly] My husband, the f ~~uck~~ ing legend—who couldn’t scramble eggs worth a damn. My husband the legend, who loved ‘Telephone Line’ by Electric Light Orchestra. Like—what the actual f ~~uck~~ , you know?

IP: …

YP: …Sorry. That was…a lot.

IP: No, no! I’m just—I’m processing. I never thought of it like this before.

YP: Life with Victor was a hell of a life. The honest-to-god truth is that I don’t have a f ~~uck~~ ing clue what to do without him. I…can’t remember a day of my life I didn’t know him.

IP: Wait—meeting him was your earliest memory?

YP: Yeah. He does that: marches into your life out of nowhere and makes it impossible not to remember him. Like a giant ‘VICTOR NIKIFOROV WAS HERE,’ plastered all over your memories. I resented him for it for a while—my angry teenage years—but now…I’d give anything for one more memory with him, you know?

IP: …[whispers] You really never had to live without him.

YP: I mean, we didn’t see each other every day or anything. Not at first. But…yeah, I was at least aware of him for as long as I can remember. [huffs] Figures I wouldn’t know what the holy hell to do now he’s gone.

IP: …I never realized.

YP: Huh?

IP: I mean…I knew you’d known him most of your life, but—I just never realized. I’m so sorry. I had no idea.

YP: Don’t apologize. It’s not your fault my dumbass husband had to die before me. Or that I got so attached.

IP: No, that’s not what I—

YP: Don’t. Apologize.

IP: …Okay.

YP: People always leave in the end, Inna. Don’t forget that.

IP: …So…do you regret it?

YP: Regret what?

IP: Falling in love with him.

YP: …No. I regret not taking us both out in a blazing murder-suicide. If anybody ever complains to you about their spouse like, ‘can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em,’ you can tell them that living without ‘em is much worse than living with them could ever be.

IP: I’ll remember that.

YP: Tell them to work it out. Compromise. F ~~uck~~ ing _talk_. About real s ~~hit~~. S ~~hit~~ that matters. Never go to bed angry—ever. I used to think this was all bulls ~~hit~~ advice, back when I first got married. But then I spent fifty-nine years married to my beautiful train-wreck of a husband, and I can promise you that this is the real deal. Hell, if you ever get married yourself, I don’t expect you to remember what Yuri Plisetsky told you in his kitchen on one rainy afternoon in [REDACTED], but do me a favor and listen when everyone else throws this stuff at you.

IP: I will. Thank you, Mr. Plisetsky.

YP: [beat] Speaking of—a couple sessions ago, you were asking how Victor and I ended up with our ridiculous asses married.

IP: Yes. I’m still wondering, if I’m honest.

YP: So, remember how I said his first heat with me was six days?

IP: Yeah.

YP: It wasn’t. We stayed in bed for six days, but his heat ended somewhere between day four and day five. He didn’t bother to tell me.

IP: So…you were… _together_ for—

YP: Having sex, yeah. You can say it. I had no idea his heat had ended. It was my first time helping an Omega through a heat, too, so I really didn’t know what to expect or how to tell when it was over. So after coming for the millionth time, Victor was dozing on my chest. I stroked a hand through his hair and asked him how he was feeling. And he…kind of…froze.

IP: Like…guiltily?

YP: Yeah. He told me then—real quiet, like he was afraid I’d kick him out or something—that his heat had ended a day and a half ago, and he’d been so afraid of us going back to being awkward with each other that he hadn’t wanted to tell me. Turned out, he liked being with me like this. He’d wanted it for some time. And I had been apparently enjoying myself too, so.

IP: Oh my god. Isn’t that…like. Super unethical?

YP: Lying about when his heat ended? Oh yeah. But our relationship had never really succeeded at being clinical, so I wasn’t mad. I wanted to be, but I just…couldn’t. I’d had a big-ass crush on him since I was a kid. If he wanted to sleep with me, who was I to stop him? So I told him that he could have just said he wanted to keep having sex, outside of his heats, and I would have agreed. He got all blushy and said that he wasn’t sure he only wanted sex. That he wanted to be with me. Like…a relationship. I had never had a relationship before, and he’d never had a proper one, so it of course stands to reason that our relationship was a clusterf ~~uck~~.

IP: How so?

YP: Well, we tried dating the usual way. But it lost its charm considering the fact that we’d known each other our entire lives. And that we were currently living together. He’d find something to do all day so that he could show up at my door in the evening with flowers to take me to dinner—never mind that we were coming back to the same place at the end of the night anyway. We had taken to sharing my bed, too, so there really was no romance in pretending. It was more uncomfortable than anything, honestly. Like play-acting or some s ~~hit~~. So, after a couple weeks of attempting normalcy, I finally just asked him formally to move in with me. He unpacked—which he hadn’t actually done in all the time he’d been staying with me. He’d tried to make his presence as unfelt as possible. All his stuff stayed in the hall closet. He never left dishes or anything sitting out. I think it was his way of respecting my space. But he moved in, then, for real. More than just a toothbrush by the sink. He didn’t have much, but it was the little stuff. His book on the floor by his side of the bed. His jacket hanging next to mine on the back of a chair. His clothes in my closet.

IP: It sounds cozy.

YP: It was. Easy.

IP: So one of you had to propose at some point, right? Or was that unconventional too?

YP: Yeah, I popped the question. But it wasn’t some normal down-on-one-knee thing or anything. Of course not.

IP: Of course not.

YP: We’d been officially together for a couple months. Our friends knew. People at the rink. Victor’s other students. Beka. One morning, he was kissing me awake like usual, and I guess I slurred something about wanting it to be like this forever.

IP: You guess?

YP: I was half asleep. It’s kind of vague.

IP: Fair enough.

YP: But anyway, he rolls off of me and goes, ‘You can ask me, you know.’ Looks at me with these big, doe eyes. More awake than he had any right to be. He looked so…open. Vulnerable. I have this terrible, sinking feeling that I know what he’s getting at, and I’ve never been great with feelings, so I tell him I have no idea what he’s talking about.

IP: Oh god.

YP: He just said, ‘I think you do.’ Calm as anything. I had my hand on his chest, though, and I could feel his heart racing. I guess I wasn’t awake enough to try and deflect anymore, because I said, ‘I don’t have a ring or anything.’ And he told me to ask anyway. So I did.

IP: What did you say?

YP: I said, ‘Marry me.’ What else?

IP: No speeches? No declarations of love?

YP: …Sometimes, I think you haven’t learned s ~~hit~~ about me, you know that?

IP: [laughs]

YP: Anyway, he said yes, kissed me, and—well. We were late to the rink that day. Yakov yelled at us, even though neither of us skated for him anymore. Victor had taken up coaching me since he’d come back. Needless to say, he spent too much time smiling and not enough time making me bleed that day, so people started to wonder what was up. They figured it out a week later, once I finally got to go ring shopping.

IP: What was the ring like?

YP: [under the breath] What is it with women and engagement rings? [beat] It wasn’t anything special. No giant diamonds or anything. Wouldn’t have been practical. It was just a platinum band. I wanted something different from the gold one Katsuki had given him.

IP: I heard a rumor that your wedding bands were made from a melted-down gold medal.

YP: Yeah. My first world championship gold. I couldn’t have won it without him.

IP: That’s…really sweet.

YP: You sound surprised.

IP: I just—you don’t seem like a _grand gestures_ kind of man.

YP: Didn’t usually need them with Victor. He was content with me packing him a lunch or bandaging his feet. But this was our wedding. It had to be special.

IP: Was anyone surprised when they found out you two were engaged?

YP: Oh yeah. Everybody.

IP: Even though they knew you were together?

YP: Let me remind you: I was nineteen. We were all painfully aware of it. Victor told me more than once to just let him know if I changed my mind about getting married. I told him not to hold his breath.

IP: Did they think it was weird? You dating someone twelve years older than you?

YP: I mean, of course they did. Everyone did. I think most people’d thought our being together was a rumor. Hoped for it, maybe. But then the ring showed up on Victor’s finger, and he let himself be freer with his affection—holding my hand, cheek kisses, you know. I think it was mostly just a shock. I wasn’t exactly known for being lovable.

IP: Right. The Ice Tiger of Russia, wasn’t it?

YP: Damn right. I was an angry little thing, too. And everyone knew that Victor was the source of about sixty percent of my anger.

IP: [shuffles papers] I read several places that you got married when you were twenty and Victor was thirty-two. The dates never matched though.

YP: We were married on [REDACTED] in 20[REDACTED]. We kept it really quiet. Victor wanted to wait until after my twentieth birthday. That suited me just fine, because wedding planning is s ~~hit~~ , let me tell you. We needed all the time we could get.

IP: You had a pretty small wedding, as I recall.

YP: [scoffs] Small is relative. Neither of us had any family, so we invited virtually every single person we knew, from all around the world. It was big to us. Hell, I didn’t even want a wedding. I wanted to go say our vows and sign the papers with Lilia as our witness and be done with it. But we were both too famous to get away with that.

IP: Why not Yakov? He was both or your coach, right?

YP: Yakov would have cried. Lilia would have just stood there, crying on the inside.

IP: Ahh.

YP: So we had a wedding. You can find pictures all over the place if you dig deep enough. Victor looked f ~~uck~~ ing radiant, of course.

IP: Did Mr. Katsuki come?

YP: …No. We…agreed that it would be in poor taste, and we never sent him an invitation. Victor called him after we got engaged and told him, but that was it. He never told me how he responded to the news, but I imagine it was kind of distant. Lukewarm.

IP: Any regrets on that?

YP: Nah. Victor was so happy. I don’t think he would have enjoyed the day half as much if Katsuki had been there to remind him of his past. What they could have had.

IP: It would have soured the whole day.

YP: Exactly. Not Katsuki himself. Just…what he was to us.

IP: And you honeymooned in…[papers rustle]…Belize?

YP: Yeah. Neither of us had ever been there. Victor got us a private villa on the waterfront—because he was rich as f ~~uck~~ and never did anything by halves. We took each other’s permanent mating bites on our wedding night, and the rest as they say is history.

IP: It all sounds really sweet.

YP: It was. Some of my favorite memories, to this day, are from our honeymoon.

IP: As it should be.

YP: Yeah.

IP: …We can be done for today. You’ve given me a ton to work with.

YP: Yeah, okay.

IP: Thank you, Mr. Plisetsky.

YP: …Actually…

IP: Yes?

YP: Want to stay for a hand of cards? I mean—if you have somewhere to be, I get it. I just—

IP: I’d like that very much. Let me just pack everything up.

YP: Yeah. Okay.


	8. Interview Log: Y.P.-06

**Interview Log: Y.P.-06**

Interviewed: Yuri Plisetsky, α, 82, widower to subject

Interviewer: Alexis Gregorovich, α, 31, biographical correspondent

Foreword: Interview conducted on [REDACTED]-[REDACTED]-20[REDACTED]. Audio recorded in Mr. Plisetsky’s home in St. Petersburg, Russia.

<Begin Log>

 

AG: Hello, Mr. Plisetsky. Your maid let me in.

YP: …Who the f ~~uck~~ are you?

AG: My name is Alexis Gregorovich. I’ll be taking over your late husband’s biography.

YP: Like hell you will. Where’s Ms. Petrushev?

AG: She has been assigned to another case.

YP: Oh, she has, has she? Well. How convenient for you.

AG: If it’s alright with you, I’ll start with some questions now. When did—

YP: It is sure as f ~~uck~~ ing s ~~hit~~ _not_ alright with me. You can take your questions and [EXPUNGED].

AG: …Mr. Plisetsky, I’m not sure what the trouble is. I’m not changing any part of the contract between you and my publishing house. All I want to do is continue where Ms. Petrushev left off.

YP: Good luck with that.

AG: Why not just tell me—

YP: I’m not telling you s ~~hit~~ , Mr. Gregorovich. I believe I had an escape clause in my contract?

AG: …I…can’t be sure.

YP: Hmm. Well I can tell you that I do. Did they explain to you how I made them rewrite it eleven times before I approved and signed the dotted line?

AG: …No, sir. They didn’t.

YP: I know for a fact that, hidden in the fine print, there is a statement that allows me to withdraw from this project at any time during the interview process.

AG: …as you say, sir. I don’t—

YP: And I _will_ withdraw, you understand me? I was working with Inna Petrushev. I won’t speak to any other interviewer who tries to knock on my door. Have I made myself clear?

AG: …but, sir. Inna is young. Inexperienced. She wouldn’t know what to do with a story like yours—

YP: Bulls ~~hit~~ , Mr. Gregorovich.

AG: …Well, then, I guess I’m not sure what it is you want from us.

YP: Either you send Inna Petrushev back here next time and don’t expect me to spill my f ~~uck~~ ing guts to just any quack with a recorder, or I’m backing out of our deal.

AG: But your investment—

YP: Money be damned. I’ve got plenty to get me through.

AG: …I’ll see what I can do. But my supervisors—

YP: You’ve heard my terms, Mr. Gregorovich. Now get the hell out of my living room.


	9. Interview Log: Y.P.-07

**Interview Log: Y.P.-07**

Interviewed: Yuri Plisetsky, α, 82, widower to subject

Interviewer: Inna Petrushev, β, 26, biographical correspondent

Foreword: Interview conducted on [REDACTED]-[REDACTED]-20[REDACTED]. Audio recorded in Mr. Plisetsky’s kitchen in St. Petersburg, Russia.

<Begin Log>

 

IP: So I heard you gave Alexis a hard time last week. [cards shuffle]

YP: Maybe.

IP: The way he tells it, it’s like the two of you went to war right in your living room.

YP: I only told him I wouldn’t talk to him.

IP: You talk to me just fine.

YP: [cards shuffle] …Why the hell was he here, anyway?

IP: …Our first set of interview notes finally made it to the top of the company. They looked them over, and my publishers think this is going to be a very successful book. They wanted to put a more…experienced interviewer on it.

YP: Unbelievable.

IP: Careful. You’re still on record.

YP: I’m too damn old to care what a bunch of bureaucrats in a publishing office think of me, Ms. Petrushev. What they did is some backward-ass bulls ~~hit~~ , and I’ll tell you why.

IP: I’m listening. [mug clinks on counter]

YP: You know people told me the same things? ‘You’re too young.’ ‘Too inexperienced.’ All that s ~~hit~~. I even had someone swear up and down that I was too little to be my age or even an Alpha, and they demanded that my health records be checked. All this talk about how other people had sized me up and found me lacking, and you know what I did?

IP: …

YP: I won the f ~~uck~~ ing Grand Prix Final at fifteen years old.

IP: Yeah, but you’re Yuri Plisetsky.

YP: Sure, but I wasn’t always _Yuri Plisetsky_. I grew up poor with an alcoholic mother and no father to speak of. I told you this on our first day. The reason I was so small always was because I was malnourished as a little kid. My childhood was spent being picked on by boys at school because I wore shoes with holes in the toes and threadbare jeans that were clearly too short. The kids in my group lessons at the rink laughed at my second-hand skates. I learned how to fight early, because I was such a popular target for the bigger kids. I had teachers tell me that I was stupid. Plenty of other adults told me that I’d never amount to anything in life. You see me as I am now, but that’s not who I always was. It’s who I became. Neither Victor nor I was born with any f ~~uck~~ ing silver spoon in our mouths. We both had to work our asses off to make ourselves into what we eventually became. And if we hadn’t had that life-changing dedication? We both would have lived and died without anyone remembering our names.

IP: …

YP: The point is, they all told me I was too little, too young, too whatever. And I’m sitting here now because I proved them wrong. You know the one thing I’ve got that Victor doesn’t? I will _always_ be the first fifteen-year-old skater to take gold at the Senior Men’s Grand Prix Final. The youngest there had ever been. There have been other fifteen-year-olds since, of course, but I’m the one who shattered that boundary. It got my name in the history books, and no one can take that away from me.

IP: So what you’re saying is—

YP: This book we’re working on? It’s a story about overcoming. I want it to be told by someone who can use it to do a little overcoming of her own.

IP: I—thank you, Mr. Plisetsky.

YP: You tell your publisher assh ~~ole~~ s that I will, under no circumstances, work with anybody except for you on this story. This is my gift to you. It’s not much—just a story. But a story can sometimes change lives. [exhales] This might be the last thing I ever do in this world, Ms. Petrushev. But I would sooner this story never see daylight than tell it to someone who wouldn’t understand or at least show some g ~~od~~ damn respect. This might just be another contract to your bosses—and maybe to you too, what do I know? But, for me, it’s…it’s my husband. My life. I lived this s ~~hit~~.

IP: I understand.

YP: As long as you do. This is your story, Ms. Petrushev.

IP: Thank you. Again. So much.

YP: Yeah, whatever. It’s your deal.

IP: Game?

YP: Rummy.

IP: Gin?

YP: Ehh, sure. Why not.

IP: [cards being dealt]

YP: Did I ever tell you that Victor used to worry about going bald?

IP: What?

YP: Yeah. Like… _worry_. I think he had nightmares about it.

IP: Oh god, really?

YP: Yeah. He’d wake up with a start in the middle of the night and immediately run his hands through his hair. Either he was dreaming about being violently scalped, or he was dreaming about going bald.

IP: Or maybe he dreamed he’d dyed his hair green by mistake.

YP: True, true.

IP: But he never did go bald, did he?

YP: Nope. He was always worried, though, because of that fine, silver hair and because his hairline receded earlier than he would have liked. But he never did go bald. Not even any of the weird, old man crop-circle shit.

IP: Oh wow. He was lucky.

YP: Sure was. I never saw his family to know what his chances should have been, but god—he’d panic about it sometimes, out of nowhere. If there was just a bit more hair in his brush than usual one day, he’d be in front of the mirror, holding back tears.

IP: [laughs] Really?

YP: Oh yeah! Whenever he got like that, he required the _advanced levels_ of comforting.

IP: And what were the ‘advanced levels,’ dare I ask?

YP: I learned early on that these particular moods of his weren’t something sex could fix. When he felt ugly, the last thing he wanted to do was be undressed and vulnerable. He used to pull his armor around himself so tightly that the only way in was to melt it slowly off without him realizing. I’d usually come up behind him while he moped in front of the mirror, and I’d slip my arms around his waist. Kind of nuzzle into him. Kiss his bite mark. Scent him a little. All the classic Omega-appeasement gestures. He responded really well to them. Except when he was like this. Then, he’d respond reluctantly, but he’d still respond.

IP: Did you ever get possessive?

YP: Oh yeah, but I didn’t really ever need to show it. The honest truth was that, because we were as famous as we were—and because everyone thought Victor was an Alpha—people put us on this pedestal. I never had to worry about anyone seriously trying to take him from me. But, when he got all upset like this, I’d whisper into his ear that he was mine. That he was my beautiful Omega and no one else’s. He liked that.

IP: Sometimes, we all have to be reminded that we’re important to the one we love.

YP: Even Betas?

IP: Even Betas.

YP: Huh.

IP: Anyway, so you’d get a little possessive of him, seduce him a little, and then what?

YP: I don’t know if I’d say ‘seduce.’ It was more of a calming exercise. Resetting him to his usual state. But after I managed to slowly maneuver him out of the bathroom, I’d make him some tea with a s ~~hit~~ ton of jam—

IP: Just how he liked it.

YP: You remembered; very good. Yeah, just how he liked it. He’d usually be more or less glued to me throughout, but he’d be really quiet. I’d ask him which kind of jam he wanted, and he’d just shrug. I’d usually give him cherry. Then, we’d take our tea and maybe some snacks out to the couch and get comfortable. He liked it when I put on a movie or some soap opera or whatever for us to watch for a while. I’d keep up the comforting stuff until he was purring. That was usually a pretty good sign that he was more or less back to normal. Still kind of fragile, but not gone off into any of the dark corners of his mind.

IP: All that because he was afraid of going bald?

YP: Ehh, he grew up in front of cameras and modeling for sponsors. Vanity was just a part of it.

IP: Fair enough.

YP: Also, he just loved to be pretty. Sometimes, when we were staying home, he’d put on makeup. Wear something casual with a bright red lip and long, black lashes. My god, he looked gorgeous like that. The first time he wore a dress for me—

IP: A dress?

YP: Yeah, you know, the kind with the full skirt that hits right about at the knees. Tucks in at the waist. Know what I mean?

IP: Yes, I do. But—

YP: There’s a reason he never did it in public, Ms. Petrushev.

IP: My apologies. I was just surprised.

YP: We both knew it wasn’t socially acceptable. Still isn’t. Which is bulls ~~hit~~ , really, because Victor looked f ~~uck~~ ing _stunning_ in a dress. The first time he did it, I had just gotten home from some press conference with one of my skaters. I’d retired to coaching by then, and I was putting down my bag and loosening my tie when I saw him in the kitchen. He had makeup on, too. The red lipstick and eyeliner and mascara. I was early, and I must have surprised him, because he jumped like I’d burned him. Tried to hide the skirt behind the counter. He looked absolutely petrified.

IP: Were you mad?

YP: Not at all, but I think he was afraid I would be. Or—probably more that I’d judge him for it.

IP: What did you do?

YP: What do you think I did?

IP: …Um. Comforted him?

YP: [laughs] Victor’s moods were nuanced. This was the kind of thing that sex _could_ fix. [beat] I f ~~uck~~ ed him on the kitchen counter without taking the dress off his body.

IP: Oh my god.

YP: Can you blame me, though? It was one of the hottest things I’d ever seen. And my husband was a literal f ~~uck~~ ing sex symbol. Which was ironic, because he’d only ever had a handful of sexual partners in his life. But the fact remains, he was incredibly attractive, even at his worst. Seeing him like that… It drove me insane. I was cleaning red lipstick off my skin for days.

IP: Am I right to assume that the dress became a fixture with the two of you?

YP: Oh yes. Hell, I bought him more. Short little clingy things and ballroom-length elegant gowns and more flirty, full-skirted ones. He had seven or eight by the time he made me stop.

IP: Was that your favorite thing that he wore?

YP: …almost.

IP: And your favorite?

YP: …It was this soft, blue tee shirt and his favorite pair of jeans. Nothing special. Not when compared to the closet full of expensive sponsor gifts and designer s ~~hit~~ that he loved so much. But…the shirt hung just right on his body, and the jeans caught his legs perfectly. His ass, too. Like he’d worn them so much that they’d become a part of him. It was…it was what he was wearing the first time I kissed him. It made his eyes look _so damn blue_.

IP: It sounds nice.

YP: It was. I’m sure you’ve seen him in it—there were plenty of pictures that went around. Nobody else probably noticed, but, to me…he was the most gorgeous thing in the world when he looked like that. If we were home, he’d put a little mascara on, and _f ~~uck~~_ , I wouldn’t be able to stop staring. He looked…he looked like _Victor_. Like himself, without any fancy s ~~hit~~. Just Victor, as god intended him. Sometimes, when he looked like that, I’d think of him as the child-Victor I never knew. The one from before I was even born. He laughed more like that, and I wondered if he smiled a lot as a kid. He looked…just…so soft. Touchable. You could tell that those jeans and that shirt had been with him for decades, through the highs and the lows. I—this is embarrassing as f ~~uck~~ , but…when he had to go away for competitions with his skaters, I’d sometimes dig the blue shirt out of the closet and hold it near my face while I slept on his pillow. I still have it. Back in our closet. Doesn’t smell like anything now, though.

IP: …May I see it?

YP: Um. Sure. Let me just—[footsteps leave room]

IP: [cards shuffle, shuffle again; deal]

YP: [footsteps return]

IP: I dealt us a new hand. [beat] Oh wow, thank you for pulling this out for me. May I touch it?

YP: Sure. Just be careful. It’s easily twice as old as you. And you don’t need to say ‘ _wow_ ’ like it’s the crown jewels or anything. It’s just a blue tee shirt.

IP: [fabric rustles] It really _is_ soft.

YP: Yeah. I imagine it started out stiffer, but he just wore it and washed it so many times…

IP: [inhales] It…kind of smells like you, now.

YP: Not surprising, really.

IP: What did Mr. Nikiforov smell like?

YP: You probably wouldn’t have noticed it. Betas don’t really pick up on all the smells we do. And he hid it really well under neutralizers and expensive cologne.

IP: What did he smell like _to you?_

YP: Without the cologne and s ~~hit~~? He smelled like…my husband. I could pick him out a mile away. It actually really bothered me sometimes that he masked his scent so thoroughly in public. If we got separated—and it’s not like we hung all over each other at professional events, so he could have been on the other side of the arena for all I knew—and something happened, it would have taken me way too long to find him.

IP: Welcome to the Beta life, I guess.

YP: I don’t know how you people live like that.

IP: To be entirely fair, though, we don’t do the bites or the territoriality or anything either.

YP: Alright, true. But I still really loved it when Victor and I were home and we’d both showered our neutralizers off.

IP: You wore neutralizers too?

YP: Just enough to keep any other Alphas from feeling threatened. It’s the common practice in crowded areas, especially where tensions are already kind of high. Don’t want to start a fight rinkside or anything. Omegas usually tone down their pheromones too, just to avoid catcalls and s ~~hit~~.

IP: Of course, Mr. Nikiforov had to put it on really thickly.

YP: Yeah. Couldn’t risk anyone figuring him out.

IP: But he didn’t wear any neutralizers when he was home?

YP: No. Why would he? Besides, I could get drunk on the way he smelled. He’d step out of the shower, all freshly washed, and I could smell him down the hall, just wafting on the air like a drug.

IP: What did you do?

YP: Usually, I went to him. Just…stopped whatever I was doing. I kissed him at the very least. Sometimes, I’d take the towel away from him and back him into the bedroom—lay him out on the bed while his skin was still wet. If he peeled me out of my clothes too, god—

IP: You’d have sex with him?

YP: I’d make love to him. There’s a difference.

IP: …oh?

YP: Victor would have been able to explain it better, but…I don’t really know. I just—smelling him for the first time all day…it felt…

IP: …

YP: I just _needed_ him in my arms. I _needed_ to love him until he forgot everything except for how crazy I was about him. We…our favorite pastime was making out like horny teenagers. And I just couldn’t ever get enough of him, no matter how hard I tried. I still—

IP: …

YP: I feel like I’m in a desert, slowly running out of water, Ms. Petrushev. Do you have any idea the hell I’d go through just to smell him again? Just like that—fresh out of the shower after a whole day of Armani cologne and neutralizers. I—ah. I realized the other day that I’ve begun to forget things about him. I think it’s been happening for a while, but…I don’t remember what he smelled like. Couldn’t describe it if I tried. I just know…I only know it felt like home. And, if I ever smelled it again…

IP: …Do you believe that he’s waiting for you? Somewhere beyond this world?

YP: I…never used to believe s ~~hit~~ like that. But now? [laughs softly] He’d better be waiting for me, the bastard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three chapters in three days?? It's like I love you guys or something.
> 
> If you want a delicious Victor+Yuri+dress+kitchen counter porn scene to go with this chapter, check out [Pretty](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11882379?view_adult=true) by [Foxfireflamequeen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxfireflamequeen/pseuds/foxfireflamequeen) (a favorite writer of mine and one I admire greatly).
> 
> Don't forget about [Push/Pull](https://tictail.com/pushpullzine)! On sale until November 1st! I'm in it, along with lots of other amazing creators, including Foxfireflamequeen and Nomanono (another favorite of mine). Also, keep your eye open for [Prism](https://prismyoi.tumblr.com/), another amazing Victurio zine! Follow them on Tumblr for updates. (I'm in that one too!)
> 
> Also, because I've had a couple people ask: I am, in fact, on [Tumblr](https://aria-faye.tumblr.com/).


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